by Nat Hentoff
“What about the very strong feelings of Nora Baines and some of the rest of us who find this sort of side-door censorship exceedingly offensive?”
“Now, Miss Fitzgerald”—Moore dug viciously into his ear—“you’re taking on an adversarial tone, and we are not adversaries. I have not known you long, to be sure, but I have known you long enough to be certain that you are not insensitive to the feelings of those who have experienced discrimination, cruel discrimination, throughout our history. Think of the kindness you will be doing them, with a small gesture of understanding.”
“Oh, it’s a bit more than that, Mr. Moore.” Deirdre got up from her chair. “I did not become a librarian to hide books and to lie to children looking for those books. What you call a small gesture would be a huge act of betrayal. Self-betrayal, among other things. Shoving books under a desk! Really, Mr. Moore!”
The principal also rose. “You disappoint me, Miss Fitzgerald. Pride is a wonderful thing, but compassion touches many more souls.”
“Is it compassion you’re talking about, Mr. Moore, or are you trying to work things out so that you’ll appear to be above the battle, no matter how it turns out?”
“How quick you are to be quick.” The principal sat on the edge of his desk. “No matter how it turns out, Miss Fitzgerald, I will still be here, and I will still be dealing with these parents until their children are graduated. Even if these parents lose this battle, I want them to know they can come to me again because I showed real concern—since you don’t like the word ‘compassion’—on this occasion.”
Deirdre shook her head. “But no concern, if I may say so, for the established review procedures of this school.”
Mr. Moore, his hands heavy in his lap, looked at the librarian. “You are talking abstractions. I am talking about people. About black people who are deeply offended by this book.”
“Mr. Moore”—Deirdre’s eyes were large and angry—“are you saying I’m a racist?”
“My, my, so quick. So quick to miss the point. I am saying that sometimes a human being of whatever color is more important than a piece of paper.”
“Including the First Amendment?” Deirdre snapped.
“Oh, well, you’re a young woman, Miss Fitzgerald. To the young, there is only right and wrong, and nothing in between. I shall look forward to discussing these matters with you again in, oh, ten to fifteen years. Thank you for coming.”
“Don’t you understand”—Deirdre Fitzgerald was looking up at a defiant Kate standing in front of the librarian’s desk a few hours later—“that there isn’t a book in this whole library that isn’t offensive to somebody?” Barney, seated at a nearby table, nodded in agreement.
“That’s not true,” Kate said. “How about Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice!”
“No blacks in it,” Deirdre said. “No Hispanics in it. No Orientals in it. How can minority students relate to a book in which there’s no one they can identify with? Therefore, Pride and Prejudice is profoundly offensive because it utterly ignores the life experiences of millions of people. Only a white racist teacher would assign—and only a white racist librarian would keep—that book.”
“You’re being deliberately silly,” Kate said.
“Really?” Miss Fitzgerald smiled. “I’ve been at conferences where I’ve heard it seriously argued that even worse than books that stereotype blacks are books that ignore their existence entirely. And those books do not belong in a public school, whether they’re literary classics or not. Kate, can’t you see what I’m getting at?”
“No group should have veto power over what books we can read,” Barney volunteered.
“Exactly.” The librarian nodded her head. “Think, Kate. If Huckleberry Finn is going to be thrown out of school because it offends some black parents, what’s to stop other groups of parents from getting up their lists of books they want out of here? Catholics, Jews, feminists, antifeminists, conservatives, liberals, Greeks, Turks, Armenians. Where does it end, Kate?”
“I don’t play those games,” Kate said coldly. “Those ‘what if’ games. All I know is that Gordon McLean has the right not to have ‘nigger’ shoved in his face in a classroom, and I have the right not to be forced to read a book that demeans women.”
“But you and Gordon”—Barney was waving his hands—“can attack the book in class and show everybody else what you think is terrible about it.”
“Why waste time on that sort of thing?” Kate said. “We ought to use our time to read good books. I mean, positive books, books that tell the truth—and only the truth.”
“Oh, my,” Miss Fitzgerald said. “Oh, my.”
“Well!” Nora Baines breezed into the library. “I have a copy of the complaint. Now at least we know what we’re dealing with.” She took several sheets of paper from a notebook she was carrying and laid them on Miss Fitzgerald’s desk.
“Can we see?” Barney asked.
“Of course,” Baines said. “This whole fight is about you folks and your tender, impressionable minds.”
The form began:
CITIZEN’S REQUEST FOR
RECONSIDERATION OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS
Name of person making request: Carl McLean.
Telephone: 764-1987
Address: 198 Cedar Drive, Alton.
Complainant represents: X himself
X (name of
organization)
the Black United
Front for Accuracy
in Instruction
Name of school owning challenged material: George Mason High School
Title of Item: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Type of media (book, film, filmstrip, cassette, record, kit, other): Book
Author/Artist/Composer/Producer, etc.: Mark Twain
Publisher or Producer: The American Classics Press (paperback)
What do you believe are the theme and purpose of this item?
The perpetuation of racism through the stereotyping of Blacks as inferior to whites, and through the constant use of racial epithets aimed at emphasizing the inferiority of Blacks.
Is your objection to this material based upon your personal exposure to it, upon reports you have heard, or both?
It is based on my having read the book, all of it, and on my having been exposed to the racism it exemplifies from the day I was born.
Have you read/heard/seen the material in its entirety?
See above.
To what do you specifically object?
In addition to what I have already said, this book, even though it is allegedly sympathetic to the main Black character—who is introduced as Miss Watson’s “big nigger, named Jim”—will reinforce the racial prejudice white students get with their mothers’ milk. Simultaneously, this book will inflict pain and humiliation upon Black students.
What do you feel might be the result of a student’s using this material?
See above. If you can see at all.
Is there anything good about this item?
Is there anything good about being bashed in the face?
For what specific population or age group do you believe this material would be appropriate? Ku Klux Klan members over 70 to carry with them to their miserable graves.
Are you aware of the judgment regarding this book or material by literary or educational reviewers? I don’t need any “literary or educational reviewers” to tell me what’s harmful, any more than I need nutritionists to tell me not to eat rotten meat.
What would you like your school to do about this item?
X Do not assign it to your child.
X Withdraw it from all students as well as your child.
— Make it available only to those who wish to use it.
— Other (specify).
In its place, what item of equal educational quality would you recommend of the same subject and format?
Of far superior educational quality would be Great Slave Narratives, selected and introduced by Ama Bontemps, B
eacon Press, Boston, 1969. This is not fiction, but no novel could be as powerful as these truths, so long unknown to those who call themselves educated.
“Wow!” Barney exclaimed as he came to the end. “That’s powerful stuff.”
“I’d sure like to hear you debate Mr. McLean.” Kate turned triumphantly to Deirdre Fitzgerald.
“I’m sure I shall have that opportunity,” the librarian said. “I can’t say I’m looking forward to it, but I’m not going to yield any more than he will.”
“Right on,” Nora Baines said. “Well, maybe I shouldn’t be using that phrase in this particular context.”
X
The head of the school board—he refused to refer to himself as the chair because he said he still had some mobility left—was Reuben Forster. His business, a chain of convenience stores that were open twenty-four hours a day, had been so efficiently organized by Mr. Forster that it practically ran itself by now.
Not that he didn’t occasionally pay a surprise visit to one of his We-Have-It-All emporia at three in the morning to make sure it hadn’t run out of beer or applesauce or light bulbs. But Mr. Forster spent most of his time on what he called his public business: the affairs of the school board; a senior-citizens center he kept supplied with conveniences from his stores; and, a special passion, a nonprofit summer camp for dogs. It was Mr. Forster’s strong conviction that dogs need vacations too—especially from their masters.
A portly man whom no one could remember seeing without his pipe, Reuben Forster was much given to long conversations with himself when he had a problem to work out. Actually, the conversations, though he was alone, were with the people involved in the problem. He would assume their voices, as best he could, while asking them questions designed to make them more open to reason.
So it was this sunny morning, the day after the Griswold-Dickinson debate, in Reuben Forster’s spacious office at the We-Have-It-All headquarters in the center of town. Puffing his pipe and walking slowly up and down the room, Mr. Forster turned to an empty chair in front of his desk and said, “Tell me, Mr. McLean, what if a white parent objected to a book written by a black author who preached that all white people are inferior?”
Taking on the clipped, swift voice of Carl McLean, Forster answered himself: “You have to name me the book and show me the specific passages where this inferiority of whites is preached. And then we will talk about it. But we are now dealing not with a hypothetical case but with a real book in this school. And in this real book, there are many passages that clearly preach the inferiority of blacks. That clearly say blacks are not fully human.”
Forster frowned and said to himself, in his own voice, “What if we did have a book saying all whites are animals? Would I defend that book? Not if it was by some nut. But what if it was by somebody of historical importance?”
“You don’t have to address that question now.” Forster’s voice had become blunt and quick. “Because Huckleberry Finn is not what Mr. McLean says it is. It does not preach the inferiority of blacks. Quite the opposite.”
“But Miss Baines,” Forster said in his own voice, “that word is there. All through the book. I can’t even bring myself to say that word, but good Lord, how can you expect a black child—” Forster shook his head and then went on. “I know your answer, Miss Baines. Mark Twain was against slavery. But that word, that word. Oh, my. I have another question. Should the meeting of the review committee be public?”
A deep, buttery voice now filled the room. “No, Mr. Forster. To make that meeting public would only increase and intensify the divisiveness over the issue. As principal of George Mason High School, I can tell you an open meeting will greatly inflame the situation. Let the committee meet by itself and then, when their recommendations come before the school board, it will be time enough for public debate. At least by then the review committee will have a clear, well-reasoned report on the matter, and that may bring some calm to the proceedings.”
“I doubt it, Mr. Moore.” Mr. Forster spoke to the air. “I doubt if we’ll have any calm about this anywhere along the line for some time to come. No, it seems to me the more public participation, the better. Then there’ll be no charges of a conspiracy by the review committee. Yes, that’s what we’ll do.” He knocked the ashes out of his pipe. “Now, I’ll have to meet with the school board and see whom we’ll have on the review committee.”
“You had better chair that review committee.” A new voice was heard in the room. A high, piercing voice. “Everybody knows you’re fair, so you’re the one to chair it!” the voice continued.
“Why, thank you, my dear.” Forster bowed to his imitation of his wife. “But I don’t know that that’s a good idea, because later I’ll be chairing the meeting of the school board that accepts or rejects the review committee’s recommendation.”
“Nonsense,” the piercing voice was heard again. “All you have to do when the review committee sits is to say you’re not taking part in the decision at that point. You’re just there to keep order since it’s a public meeting on a highly controversial matter.”
Reuben Forster filled his pipe. “All right, my dear. That makes sense.”
“Mr. Forster—” A squeaky male voice edged into the discussion. “We’ve had a lot of complaints about that new line of batteries. Customers say their being cheap don’t do no good if they give out right away.”
“You are at the wrong meeting, Oliver,” Mr. Forster growled. “This is public business.”
“I cannot believe this is happening,” Luke, sprawling in a chair, said to Barney in the library two days after the Matthew Griswold-Kent Dickinson debate. Nearly everyone else in the school had gone home, but they, along with Nora Baines, were waiting to find out who would be on the review committee for the trial of Huckleberry Finn.
“I cannot believe it.” Luke kept shaking his head. “Just a couple of weeks ago, on television, I saw that movie, Fahrenheit 451. You know, the one they made out of Ray Bradbury’s book. But that was in the future. Way in the future.”
“Where you been?” Barney said. “This has been happening all over the country.”
“Yeah”—Luke ran his hand through his hair—“but it hasn’t been happening to me. I mean, I heard some things last year about some books just dropping out of sight because Mighty Mike met with a parent or somebody, but I didn’t pay it much mind. I should have, I suppose, but I didn’t. You didn’t either.” He pointed at Barney.
“What do you want with me?” Barney frowned. “I just became editor.”
“But you were writing for the paper last year,” Luke said. “I don’t remember reading anything about behind-the-scenes censorship at good old George Mason. Or was that because Mighty Mike wouldn’t have let you become editor if you’d made that kind of noise?”
“Damn it”—Barney glared at Luke—“you know better than that. I tried to nail down a couple of those stories last spring, but it was like catching smoke. Nobody would say anything. Mr. Moore would just give me one of those fat smiles. Mrs. Salters said she didn’t know what I was talking about, and when I got to one of the parents who’d supposedly complained, all she’d say was she had nothing more to complain about. Anyway, good buddy, it seems to me we ought to concentrate on what’s happening now.”
“I cannot believe it,” Luke said again. “Next thing you know those firemen from Fahrenheit 451 will be coming in here putting the torch to”—he waved at the shelves around him—“all of this. And then each of us is going to have to memorize a book to keep it alive for generations to come. Man, that’s hard work.”
“Calm down,” Barney said. “No way this review committee is going to throw out Huckleberry Finn. But it is good to have all this out in the open now—so we can fight it out in the open.”
Miss Baines, who had been leafing through the Daily Tribune, snorted. “Barney, I want you to think about what you just said. Here we’ve got a book on public trial. No matter how that trial comes out, I think it’s sad that it
ever had to begin. You know, it’s never the book that’s really on trial. It’s the author, even if he’s dead. Remember that, Barney. Every time this sort of thing happens, it’s a person who’s being tried. For his ideas, his feelings, his memories, his fantasies, his yearnings, his language, which is his very self. To tell you the truth, I don’t care what the book is. I hate to see words on trial. I get the willies. We’re stuck with this trial, Barney, but we should not celebrate it, even if we win. Because putting a book on trial is wrong. It always has been, it always will be, and I am dreadfully afraid it will never stop.”
Having never heard Nora Baines speak in quite this way, Barney wasn’t quite sure how to answer when a shout was heard, followed by Deirdre Fitzgerald’s excited voice. “I’ve got it! I’ve got the list!”
Deirdre sat down at her desk and spread out a Xerox copy of the school board’s appointments to the review committee in the case of Huckleberry Finn.
“You’re on the list, of course?” Nora Baines said. “The librarian has to be on it.”
“Well”—Deirdre smiled—“Mr. Moore said he was thinking seriously of recommending that the board disqualify me because I had already made up my mind. But I reminded him that our discussion had only been about his wanting to take the book off the library shelves before the poor thing had even heard the charges against it. I asked him if he was going to do the same thing to me.” She laughed. “He backed down. With a very sour smile, I’ll tell you.”
“But you already have made up your mind,” Barney said to the librarian.
She looked at him soberly. “Why, you know, Barney, that judges cannot come to any conclusion until all the evidence is in.”
“The list!” Nora Baines said impatiently. “Who else is on the list!”
“I don’t know some of these names,” the librarian said. “Remember, I’m new here. Okay. From the staff, Helen Cook. Head of social studies department, right?”